Charles Jules Henry Nicolle was French bacteriologist who won the 1928 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on typhus. Born in Rouen, France, he studied medicine as his father wanted him to be a doctor. But soon after receiving his medical degree he was drawn to bacteriological research and within three years became head of the bacteriology laboratory at the Medical School of Rouen. Subsequently, he shifted to Tunisia to become Director of Pasteur Institute at Tunis. He turned the institute into a distinguished hub for bacteriological research and personally took up extensive research on different types of microbes. Among them, his research on epidemic typhus was most significant. He established that the vector of this disease, which killed thousands of people every winter, was none other than body louse and one can stay protected simply by getting rid of lice. After this de-lousing camps were regularly organized in Tunis. During the World War I, delousing stations were also established on Western Front, which helped to save thousands of lives. In addition, he had also worked on Malta fever, tick fever, cancer, scarlet fever, rinderpest, measles, influenza, tuberculosis, trachoma and had also discovered a new parasitic organism called Toxoplasma gondii.
